


boa noite

by softscience



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Confessions, Endings, Idiots who can't just say what they want to say, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29775243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softscience/pseuds/softscience
Summary: Tobio visits Shouyou in Rio because he has something he really, really needs to say.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9
Collections: Haikyuu Writer Jukebox Round One - Mitski





	boa noite

**Author's Note:**

> after Last Words of a Shooting Star by Mitski

“I really can’t believe you’re here,” Shouyou says, for the fourth time, since picking Tobio up from the bus stop. The sun is shining very brilliantly in Rio and Tobio chuckles at how it makes the orange in Shouyou’s hair even more solidly _orange_ he has to blink more times than usual to rest his eyes. 

If he were the Tobio from maybe two or three years ago, he’d tackle Shouyou for this blabbering sentimentality. Maybe even cringe from the fondness in his voice, in the repeated cadence of it. In the emphasis on the _can’t_. Like it was impossible. Like Tobio couldn’t. 

But Tobio right now just simmers in the joy that billows around his chest hearing Shouyou say it over and over again. 

“You should say that again,” he says, not hiding the grin in his face just as they round up the corner that leads them to the beach. Their flip-flops falling onto the street that slowly begins to be littered with sand.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” is what Shouyou says instead, and it’s not what he’s said before, the first four times, but it’s the same. And Tobio breathes in the beautiful scent of the water.

*

Tobio watches Shouyou play beach volleyball for a whole three sets -- in which his team loses, before joining him for the next one. 

When Shouyou’s partner points at him and goes, “You, here!” stabbing a finger at him and then at his spot, Tobio is simply waiting. He gets up and he hasn’t even stepped onto the makeshift court before Shouyou, wrecked with joy, yells, “Just keep the ball coming to me!”

And of course, as always, or maybe it’s simply fated this way to occur, most expectedly, Tobio sets the ball to Shouyou’s perfect hands.

*

“Why is there a _pool_ here in your hotel?!”

Tobio had booked then the first cheap hotel he had seen when he was searching. This room here was discounted, didn’t have the usual free breakfast buffet or meals, was a bit of a stretch from the beach, but what the hell. While the plane for the trip itself has been thoroughly premeditated, everything else after happened one eye closed, by instinct. The hotel. The packing. The arrival. The fuck-I-don’t-speak-Portuguese. The hoping and praying that Shouyou remembered his flight details. And when he spotted a bright orange head amid a crowd that parted just as the light turned green, he instantly remembered why he had flown here in the first place. 

He has something he really, really needs to say to Shouyou. Tobio waves both his arms until Shouyou catches sight of him and smiles, laughs, runs, enjoys the sight of Shouyou heading towards him while he can.

*

Tobio is lying down on his single bed, while Shouyou surveys the small room. He touches and opens the cabinets, checks the faucet, unfolds and then tries to refold the small towel shaped into a swan on the bedside table. 

When the thing doesn’t stay sitting up, he says, “I’m bored. We should go to the pool.”

“I thought you hated this hotel had a pool.”

Shouyou flops down the bed, his arm carelessly draping across Tobio’s legs.

“I didn’t say I hated it,” he says, twisting his body around so he’s facing Tobio. “I only pointed it out. Rio is a coastal city, you know, if you wanted some water, we could’ve swam by the beach.”

“But now you want to go to the pool,” Tobio says, already starting to feel himself smiling. He sits up, already knows where this is going.

“Yeah! We can play pool volleyball! I’ve never tried that! Have you tried it?” And before Tobio can even form a reply to all of that, Shouyou is already on his feet, grabbing his bag, which contains nothing but his keys, his phone, a little Portuguese dictionary, and a volleyball.

*

They realize it’s much harder than beach volleyball. But the pool is empty, the water is cool, and despite the strain in their legs and the water repeatedly getting into their ears and mouth and then eyes -- Idiot, why’d you spike it straight into my face!? -- they are having a lot of fun. The laughter making the bitter taste of chlorine sweet, sweeter.

They let the ball then bob on its own as they swim aimlessly, float on their backs, feel the water pucker up their skin.

They watch the sunset quietly. The view here is mediocre. There is no breathtaking horizon turning red. There is no city skyline slowly lighting up. There is only a small courtyard where the pool overlooks, a couple of trees, their shadows rendered solid by the surroundings growing dark and suddenly lush. 

“You said you had something to say to me,” it’s Shouyou who breaks the moment first.

_Ah, that._

Tobio mulls over it for a moment. 

“Later.”

“What? What is it?”

It’s dark here now. And then one by one, the small lamps perched on the balustrade surrounding the pool lights up. Illuminates the two of them and makes the water shimmer.

“I’ll tell you later.” Tobio realizes then he'd like to prolong the moment more, wants to selfishly stretch it on and on, the pleasant warmth of the water, Shouyou's company, the comfort of seeing a volleyball bobbing around them at a mere hand's reach. 

But Shouyou doesn't and starts to playfully splash him with water instead. 

“Come on.”

“Stop it.”

“Well, say it,” he says, moving closer, splashing him more. Laughing beautifully.

“I said later. Stop it!”

"What is it!!" Shouyou kicks the water to Tobio's side, fully drenching him until he's nearly submerged so Tobio just pulls himself down and sinks to the bottom of the pool to escape him. 

Shouyou follows him under anyway. 

The world throbs differently underwater. Everything else disappears and there’s nothing here but the two of them. Tobio opens his eyes and sees Shouyou with his eyes screwed shut, his knees folded so it almost touches his chin. His hair, floating around his head like cheese-dyed kelp. 

Tobio grins, feels his heart grow two sizes bigger at the sight of Shouyou like this. Then before the moment passes, before Shouyou loses the breath he is holding, Tobio lets the confession finally bubble out of his mouth: _I like you._

Everything here feels suspended somehow, and although Tobio opens his mouth to say it, no sound comes out. Good, he thinks. So he adds too: _For a long time now. But this is all there is, isn’t it. It's okay. I understand. But now it's time for me to let g--_

Shouyou moves then, jumps up and breaks the surface, gasping and already laughing. 

Tobio watches him with his lungs burning, still underwater, the last half of his confession, his last words left in his throat. And then he goes up too, suddenly feeling very relieved, and breathes again. 

*

Back in the room, Shouyou is toweling off his hair. He had changed back into his shirt from earlier today. 

Tobio had offered for him to stay the night, and he almost says yes, but he doesn’t. He has an early morning tomorrow, got a job, and anyway we’ll meet by lunch, right? 

“So what is it?”

Tobio rolls his eyes. 

“Come on. You said you were going here because you had something to say to me. You _flew_ here.”

Shouyou crawls closer to where Tobio is sitting at the foot of the bed. 

“Are you gonna finally say you like me or something,” he says, eyes crinkling with the laughter he’s not even trying to hide. _Dumbass_. 

Tobio grins then, shifts in his seat. He faces Shouyou, looks him in the eye, shrugs for effect, then says, “Boa noite.”

He understands... he thinks. And yet, his heart, Shouyou’s heart, stupidly skips a beat and then falls, shoots straight down his legs like a fucking shooting star. He swallows and grandly blurts out, “Oh?” 

They look at each other a moment longer before Shouyou sort of grins and then says, in what little Portuguese he knows, “Eu também,” with too much tenderness for it to simply mean what Tobio thinks it means.

Tomorrow, when they have lunch, maybe he’ll ask what Shouyou meant then. Maybe Shouyou will also give him a hard time before he says what he really means. Tobio knows.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
